Goldilocks
by Citrine Nebulae
Summary: Sequel to ALKALINE. The alien scourge aboard the Cavalier is eliminated. Nasira returns to civilization but a terrible truth is not far behind her. Determined to set things right, she breaks away from her duties and begins a mission to make the perpetrators of the scourge pay for their crimes. But she's not the only one seeking justice...
1. Prologue - Marooned

**Goldilocks**

* * *

**Prologue: Marooned**

* * *

Her gaze remained fixed on the sky for a long while, the contrail of the dead ship she'd left behind echoed in her eyes. She was unable to look away despite how they stung and ached to close. Beside her, the corpse of the roc and its babies steamed as the heat left them and this planet's night cycle approached. Embedded in the mother's chest was the spear she'd used to slay her, and from it hung the string of fangs that Runite had given her. She reached out her one good arm, which was seated beside a broken collarbone and shoulder, and strained like she could summon it to her side if only she had the will.

When she failed, she looked toward where the lifeboat had disappeared behind the edge of the nest to land on the rocky shore somewhere beneath. With her one arm, she managed to drag herself forward a few inches. Pain annihilated her brain as every shattered part of her protested the motion, and when her consciousness returned she saw that she'd spit up a small amount of bile into her helmet and that the sun was lower than when she'd begun. But she did it again, seizing one of the protruding roots on the lip of the roc's nest and hauling herself up and over.

Her bones creaked, shrapnel floating freely inside of her body. An overlay on the screen of her helmet showed fractures in her legs, her ribs, her pelvis, her skull. Her lips and tongue were bitten clean through and blood crusted her mouth and tracked down her throat.

She tumbled from the nest and down onto a spined rock that drove all the air out of her lungs and took her back to the abyss.

_Uataislurn, the genocide she witnessed just before they'd departed. The Cavalier. The criminal responsible, Marcus, and his cold face as he'd boarded with the capsule that would doom them. Then the first of the Queen's brood bursting into the world. _

She was on a bed of sand at the bottom of the sloped rock, now some twenty or thirty feet below where the nest was perched. The suit told her what new injuries the tumble had given her but she ignored them. The lifeboat was in sight, waiting for her like an obedient animal as she struggled to right herself. It was harder to pull herself across the sand than the nest but the shifting cushion it provided kept the worst of the pain at bay. With every damp pull against the sand, the memories returned.

_Tresses and the predators. Siwili, spitted limply upon the barbed tail of the Queen's servant. Runite tearing Marcus to pieces, and the purple marks on Edmund's neck where the parasite had gripped him. Red erupting from his chest before he'd fallen away. _

She awoke again, grabbed another fistful of sand and pulled.

_Runite standing on the other side of the glass in the airlock chamber. Meeting his eyes, feeling his strange, molten gaze on her. And the force of decompression that had driven them apart. _

Sand spilled through her fingers and she whimpered, trying to hold onto the first half of the memory even as it slipped away. She mourned it, her cries small and sad as they tried to find their way out of her battered body.

_The way Tresses had turned away from her, had crippled the way to the lifeboats bay so Nasira could not escape. _

A death sentence that she'd deserved but never found. She'd abandoned Siwili, had been responsible for Runite's death. Now she was here and the ship was no more.

As she approached sanctuary, the cuff of her suit sang out cheerfully and opened the lifeboat bay so she could crawl up the ramp and into the cabin. It closed behind her, banishing the sounds of the grey planet's sea crashing against the distant cliffs.

It was over. Over.

The medical pod which she'd promised would save Edmund instead took her into its cradle, ravaged heat suit and all. A prompt appeared before her.

_Initiate cryosleep?_

Nasira choked on a laugh, causing the caked blood down her throat to split, and hit YES. The pod sealed and two warm, orange flickering lights in the pod's glass canopy indicated the sleep cycle engaging. Her arms went up as if reaching for something that only she could see.

And then she knew no more.

* * *

**Thank you to Colorful Crayola for beta'ing for me! I know it's been awhile, but I hope you guys enjoy this sequel to ALKALINE. I won't talk too much, but I'm graduated now and I'll have the time to start writing for fun again! If you want to become a patron and support me, visit /citrinenebulae on patr (e) on dot you-know-what! Visit my profile to see what benefits each tier of support will grant you, and feel free to message me with requests for benefits to add! Whatever you might be interested in. :)**

**This prologue and chapter 1 of Goldilocks are available NOW to my patrons. Otherwise, chapter 1 will be available on in one week! **


	2. Bleed

**Chapter One:** Bleed

* * *

The chill of the glass viewports leached through her clothes, the cold bringing with it a reminder of her time aboard the doomed ship. The way dread had seated itself inside her, had frozen her blood to ice and turned her heart glacial. Around every corner, the possibility of coming across the splintered, shuddering breath of one of those things on the hunt. But she did not move away, only wiped the window clear of her breath so she could see out beyond where the station made way for open space. The loading bay, visible beneath her window, was deserted, and the blackness beyond gave no indication that there would be any homecoming today.

The lifeboat she'd sent out with the ship's sole survivors had not been heard from since she herself had jettisoned it against Tresses' wishes. However, that wasn't unexpected. The lifeboats traveled slowly, reserving their energy for life-support systems, and so far the craft was too small to be detected. They were out there, though. She knew it. The last hope that she hadn't completely failed everyone who had trusted her.

She'd betrayed Tresses, put her and Runite and Siwili all in danger in an attempt to save them. She hadn't been able to protect the passengers from Marcus, didn't notice as they'd become breeding stock for the infestation, quietly picked off from the central bunker which she'd thought was safe. She'd renounced Adrara, didn't deserve to think she could be one of them after all she'd done and all she'd failed to do.

_This is Nasira Lathan. I was once an agent of Adrara. Of the thirty-five souls aboard this vessel, all but eight have perished. The survivors are aboard a lifeboat bound for Thouopro. If this message is ever received, it is likely the network has already picked them up. I give up Adrara. I give up the survivors. I don't deserve them anymore. The infestation will end here, with me._

Nasira ducked her head, cringing at the memory of the transmission she'd sent before she'd known it was possible to escape. They, Adrara, had gone over it with her almost as soon as they'd picked her up on the roc's grey planet.

They'd revived her in orbit, and so she'd sputtered and wept that they had to return to retrieve the spear embedded in the mother roc's throat, the string of tokens Runite had given her still wrapped around its haft. But, unable to make sense of her pleas so soon out of cryosleep, they'd left it behind.

Then they'd mended her bones, polished smooth her bruises and contusions. Sat her in front of a panel of Adraran officers and asked her what she meant when she said she was only once an agent of Adrara, why she had given them up, and what of the infestation?

She told them only that Marcus had brought an infectious organism aboard, that it had cut through the passengers and left only the survivors on the lifeboat. She said nothing of the predators. Nothing of the genocide Marcus had been a part of on Uataislurn. Only her regret that she had not been able to save more lives and the moment of the transmission where she thought she would be trapped on the ship when the reactor overloaded.

"I realize this isn't...the conduct that you expect from me. I just - I'll leave you to your decision."

It was then that they'd told her that they had not heard from the survivors, but not to worry. They'd sweep for the lifeboat, but there was not much else to do but wait until it was near enough to be detected.

In the meantime, she was prescribed therapy and remanded for her lapse in conduct in the transmission. They would investigate the events on the ship via the lifeboat once it arrived, but they would not find much recorded in its log, she knew. No camera feed from the ship; that had all been destroyed with it. They would see only that the central bunker had been sealed, as was emergency protocol, and then breached. Then the reactor overloaded.

Another thing they'd added a moment before she'd started to stand and leave: a psychological evaluation. They'd assigned a chaperone to watch over her recovery and give reports so they might determine whether she was fit to resume her duties within Adrara.

There was a knock at the door and Nasira turned away from the viewport to answer.

"What?"

Markel ducked her head in. "You said you would be training today."

Nasira turned back to the viewport, annoyance washing over her. The condescension of the measure made her want to hit something. She tried not to let it show. Markel was watching her, evaluating her mental state. Not that she knew what it meant to fail her eval. The idea of going back to Adrara as if nothing had happened felt...out of the question.

"Right," she said, standing. "Thank you for reminding me."

Markel's silver-edged bob was perfectly blunt on all sides, moving in a uniform shimmer like a curtain falling as she moved to look at Nasira more closely. But she didn't say anything, merely stepping aside so Nasira could lead her through the Adraran outpost to the training gym.

Nasira wore a thin pair of drawstring pants but shed the jacket layer, leaving her in only a black tank top. She wore no headscarf, her mother's tucked carefully away in her quarters so as not to aggravate the tatters acid blood had made in it. She'd never worn it for tradition or modesty's sake - it was the only thing she had held onto from Earth, from her mother who she scarcely remembered. She was not the same as that person, so now she just braided her hair tightly down to the scalp so it wouldn't get in the way for training.

Markel stepped out of her uniform boots but otherwise remained in her grey Adrara smock and stepped onto the mat across from Nasira. She dropped smoothly into a bent-kneed stance and Nasira mirrored her. They'd healed her and she'd had a couple of days to recover from the exhaustion of cryosleep, but she was still a little rusty and felt the burn in her legs almost immediately.

"Ready?" Markel asked. Nasira nodded and Markel gestured her forward.

Nasira swung her leg wide and Markel rolled under it, popping up onto her feet on Nasira's right. Nasira evaded a jab to her middle and spun around, trying to hook her foot on Markel's ankle. She deflected and locked Nasira in a hold with one arm around her throat and her hands pinned behind her back. Nasira coughed and tapped and Markel released her.

"Good?"

Nasira massaged her throat. "Fine."

"We can stop."

Instead of answering, Nasira charged her again, putting her shoulder down. Markel turned sideways and grabbed her arm, spinning her away. All at once it came back to her - her duel with Runite for the right to go to the hive. The way he'd sauntered, postured in front of her like she was no challenge at all. In the end she'd nearly bested him, had stood against him and the Queen and Tresses when she'd tried to destroy her for leaving Siwili behind. She'd proved equal to them once. She should be better than _this_.

Nasira felt a snarl leave her. She swung a wild blow at Markel's head, snapping it to the side. While she was unbalanced, Nasira dragged her down onto the mat by the neck and rolled, smashing her elbow down onto Markel's face. White blood erupted from her nose and spattered the mat.

Nasira immediately rolled away, her rage dimming as she was reminded of where she was. "Oh, shit, I'm sorry."

Markel clutched her nose. "It's alright." Her expression was smooth and her eyes clouded as she examined the digital readout of her injuries tattooed across her eyeballs. She was a highly advanced android even if she was primarily a psychological evaluator, and her fighting skills had been programmed in especially for Nasira's needs. "Easy fix. I'll go to maintenance."

Nasira nodded, her face still red at her loss of control. Markel stepped back into her shoes and started to leave. Before she was gone, however, she turned and looked over her shoulder.

"Nasira." Markel's silver gaze was on Nasira, still standing near the mat marked with blood. "I'm sorry, but I'll have to include this in your evaluation. Do your meditation therapy, and be careful."

Nasira nodded and Markel left. Then she whirled around, dropping to her knees and punching the mat until her breath turned ragged and her knuckles split open and she imagined she could make it bleed as well.


	3. Quarantine

**Chapter Two:** Quarantine

* * *

Her knuckles shone briefly, white light embedded in the bone, then the split skin began to knit. Her nurse twittered an inquiry at her.

"No," Nasira said, flexing in and out of a fist. "No pain. Thank you."

Her nurse bowed her head in acknowledgement then moved away.

The infirmary was an entire wing of the spiralling outpost. Adrara shuttled people up from the surface of the planet beneath for more advanced medical care, so she was not alone in the examination room. One patient had its long appendages propped up in several slings while a technician in a grey Adrara smock slowly mended each joint. The care here was communal - her own nurse turned to start helping the next in-progress treatment as soon as Nasira was deemed healed. There was almost no need for privacy; most lifeforms felt no shame or embarrassment in settings like this because Adrara was so accommodating. When the survivors of the Cavalier arrived, it was here that they would be received as well.

The thought unnerved her. Giddy from their rescue, the survivors would have too much to say about the xenomorph outbreak and the predators. Nasira didn't think she wanted those things spilling out in this place for all to hear.

Markel's boots squeaked to a stop, prompting Nasira to look at her. Her nose was repaired from where Nasira had mistakenly broken it.

Markel said, "Some trouble?" and gestured at Nasira's newly healed hand.

"No. Must've happened when we were training."

Markel didn't acknowledge the lie but surely she logged it away to deconstruct during her psych eval.

"I've just been talking with your supervising council," she said. "We decided it might be beneficial to your recovery for you to know."

"Know what?"

"We've picked up a signal from a rogue lifeboat. No contact yet, but it could be from the Cavalier."

Nasira bolted to standing. "Are you sure?"

"It seems fairly certain."

"When can we make contact?"

"Their trajectory suggests it will arrive in our airspace tomorrow morning. We're taking precautions against this contagion you mentioned, so we'll have it towed to a quarantine bay. We'd like you to make first contact. They'll be low on air, rations. Emotions will be running high. We think you could be a friendly face, provided you don't do anything to remind them of the incident."

Nasira didn't say that her face was the only reminder that they needed. Her face, even to her own eyes in the mirror, was etched deep by memories of the incident.

"I'll do it," she said.

* * *

Back in her quarters, she again sat at the viewport and stared out. The bright curvature of the planet beneath was just visible at the edge of the glass, the fringe between world and space. No longer did the view feel so empty, so much like an embodiment of her mistakes. They had made it. They would be home soon.

Part of her had worried that after Tresses had abandoned ship that she may have pursued the lifeboat and destroyed it like the first Nasira had sent. That all considerations but containment came secondary, even at the expense of innocents. But Runite had scanned all the survivors when they'd rescued them from the hive. There was no need for Tresses to prevent the lifeboat from reaching civilization. Still, could she be out there tailing it, watching and waiting to determine if there was a threat? Did she know Nasira had escaped, and would she come seeking vengeance for Runite, lost; and Siwili, maimed and abandoned?

Nasira's skin crawled as if she was being watched. Her quarters were only large enough to fit her cot with a pace of aisle leftover before the opposite wall began. Still, she checked all the corners before going back to sit at the bottom of the port with the dark all around her.

* * *

Flanking her on all sides were a hundred souls, all uniformed agents of Adrara. Their message was clear if wordless - you are safe, you are home, we are here to protect you now. Their unified stance almost seemed like a condemnation of Nasira's efforts. As if she hadn't done enough, as if they could have done better.

Still and all, she wore a new uniform as well, the navy coat weighing her down like she'd been tasked with holding up the sky. She was a pretender here, among them. Instead of feeling shame - shame at failing in her duties, at her lapse in conduct, shame at not being good enough - she felt only annoyance. This was only a charade, giving her a clean, pressed uniform and asking her to be the person she'd been before everything that had happened. Maybe they'd forget to ask for it back and she'd attack the sleeves with cutting shears, rip and tear until it was in a state in which she was worthy to wear it.

Her fists clenched at her side. That didn't matter now. They did. They were the only thing.

The quarantine bay was a sealed inner chamber of the regular vehicle drydock hanger. It was ejected from the rest of the station on a long mechanical track and connected only by a spacebridge with reinforced airlocks on each side. To prevent breaking quarantine, it could be severed then jettisoned with a moment's notice.

From this hanger, they could see clear across into the quarantine bay despite the stretch of space between through the huge cubic pane of clearglass on each structure. It was empty for now while it was moving into position.

"How much longer?" Nasira asked.

"Not long. We've towed the boat into a holding pattern around the station. No radio contact has made it harder."

After what seemed like an eternity, the sawtoothed doors of the Q-bay split open. The Cavalier's sole surviving lifeboat drifted in on the far side, silent as a tomb from this distance.

Markel nodded and Nasira and she started down the spacebridge. Accordion-shaped clearglass on all sides so she could look back and see the ranks of Adrara lined up in the station hanger and forward at the lifeboat in the Q-bay.

Markel stopped at the first airlock.

"I'll be right here," she said. "You lead them through. Remember, nothing to upset them. I'll send a team if things get complicated."

Nasira stepped into the airlock.

"Nasira?" Markel held out her hand. A moment passed before Nasira took it. A firm squeeze. "You got them back. You did this."

The airlock sealed between them and for a moment she was instead across from Runite, his strange face new to her and his gaze upon her. And then the loss.

Nasira swallowed down grief, pushed it aside, as she started the long walk across the Q-bay. Everyone was watching her from the other hangar but she kept her eyes ahead.

There was no movement from within, but she understood their caution. Remie knew that the predators had not wanted the lifeboat to leave. She hoped that Markel was right that seeing Nasira first might give them some ease.

A panel on the underside permitted her to drop the ramp. Inside, it was quiet except for a light, echoing bump just past where she stood in the entrance. They must be huddled up in the lofted sleeping quarters, hidden behind the bunks, hushing each other until Remie could report no danger.

Nasira rounded the corner and collided with a hard carapace. It was so sleek and midnight black that she could not immediately distinguish it from the lifeboat machinery until it snapped at her.

Nasira leapt back, reaching over her shoulder for a weapon that was worlds away. There was nothing between her and this new Queen, nothing to stop the gnashing crystal jaws as they came at her -

\- a terrible screeching rang out as the new Queen's crown sheared off the metal ceiling of the lifeboat. The spines jutting out from her head were bent awkwardly, curled and grown in on themselves. She was frozen in a sort of crouch like the roof had fallen down on her and pinned her. Her tail bumped around uselessly, unable to find a way to snake through her immobile tangle of limbs. Her body crowded the entire lifeboat, caged her in so she was stuck tight.

And all around her, littering the floor, were the bodies. One with a hole through the pelvis, the work of the new Queen's barbed tail when it had not been quite full-size. Another in two pieces. A few she did not recognize, laying in chunks, scattered chunks, like her captivity had been a bore and the new Queen had turned to worrying away at the ones she could reach to pass the time. And Remie. Remie with her lower jaw halfway off and a whole quadrant of her skull collapsed and dark.

Nasira leaned back against the wall while she hunted for the rest. There. The nimod infants, one with a void in its chest. Because that's the only way this could have happened, the only way it was possible. Runite had checked all the others, but the nimod infants...she'd taken them right into her arms.

The newborn had likely cut right through them, evolving and growing with each kill until it could no longer move about in the cramped cabin. The lifeboat had carried on quietly, no signs of duress, until it arrived here with the only passenger left.

Nasira let her fingers wander until they grasped something she could use as a weapon. A metal pipe, its purpose unknown. Blunt, but it went straight through the new Queen's armored undercarriage. She shrieked as yellow acid fountained and the floor began to give way. Nasira watched, impassive. She did not have long before it seeped through to begin eating the Q-bay away and Adrara interceded, so she planted her feet and twisted, pulverizing the new Queen's organs, stirring them up inside her while she wailed and could do nothing to stop it from happening. Helpless, just as helpless as Nasira had been to stop the bloodshed aboard the Cavalier.

When the new Queen's hissing innards landed in a wet pile and then dropped down through the melted bottom of the lifeboat, Nasira let go of the pipe and stepped back.

She disembarked the lifeboat to a light breeze. The Q-bay's floor, thought reinforced against decompression risks, was weakening. Nasira ducked low and shimmied under the lifeboat, stabbing at the molten floor with what remained of the pipe so it might dissolve faster and sweep her and it and all its massacred contents out into the abyss.

Something grabbed the end of the pipe and stopped her short - Markel. She did not react to the acid even as it started eating away at the artificial skin covering her hand. Nasira strained but could not resist.

Markel dragged her out from under the lifeboat and for the first time, Nasira was forced to pay attention to what was happening elsewhere. Across the quarantine stretch, the ranks of Adrara were loosening in confusion at what was happening on her side. Someone rushed to the controls for the Q-bay.

"They're following quarantine protocol," Markel said. The hangar they stood in shuddered and then smoothed and very slowly the gap between the two widened. "Severed."

She looked at Nasira.

"We're dead in the water."

Nasira didn't respond, just yanked the pipe away from Markel and sat down right there with it across her knees, waiting as the Adrara station shrank away and their air vented out through the widening hole in the floor and the void could bring with it the end she deserved.


	4. Burial

**Chapter Three:** Burial

* * *

Nasira was vaguely aware of Markel moving around, doing something that took her back and forth out of Nasira's line of sight, but could scarcely care. Her eyes remained fixed on the craggy breach in the hangar floor as it widened and the wind picked up. This was the end of the line for her. Finally, it had come after so many close calls that had left her unbalanced and defeated and wondering deliriously what fresh hope would next be dashed. They were gone now, all of them, and soon she would be gone too. What else was there?

Remie, poor Remie, who had been the first to trust her. The two of them cornered in the infirmary by that evil bitch. Remie had confessed she'd only been calm enough to stay in hiding instead of flee when she had the chance because…

"_Because I saw you," _Remie had said. "_Because you had come to save us." _

How misguided that faith had been. How long had it taken her to realize that aboard the lifeboat? How long after the nimod infant's chest had burst? What about when the spawn was in the walls and they had no way to capture or kill it without maiming the lifeboat? When it had grown large enough to set itself onto the survivors? Maybe in her last seconds when it reared up in front of her, a Queen coronated, and made that dark chasm in her head? Or had she believed in Nasira until the end, no way of knowing she had been wrong, until it didn't matter anymore?

Nasira pressed her fists to her head as if she could stop the thoughts from drilling their way forcefully into her mind like screws through her temples. It was as though she was being pulled inexorably towards a dark spiralling place from which there was no return. But elsewhere she was able to discern that the wind within the hangar was tapering off, weakening, so she finally looked up.

Markel was standing on the edge of the breach. Under her arms was a thick hose like one for fire retardant but instead of foam it was pumping out black sealant. It hit the edge of the breach and hardened, shrinking it.

Then Nasira looked up at the belly of the lifeboat, through the hole in its floor where the massacre still lived.

"Wait," she said, and reached out to Markel.

Markel warded her off with one hand, her android strength enabling her to do so without even looking away from her work closing the breach. Nasira stumbled and sat down hard. She had no choice but to watch Markel seal the rest of the breach. The wind died completely and the air was still.

Markel dropped the hose and considered her work. The breach was closed by what looked like a scabby patch of black tar. A temporary solution, but it worked just the same.

"Why did you do that?" Nasira asked. "You just contradicted quarantine protocol. They condemned us."

"They made a judgement from afar to protect the station. Now that there is no danger to them, I will reassess as I see fit. There may still be something to salvaged, to be gained from this."

"To be gained?" Nasira was numb. What could be gained? There was nothing left, nothing but the need to see the last of the survivors gone, at peace maybe, or just put to silent burial in the void of space. But she had failed at that too, because no longer were the contents of the hangar in danger of being swept away like a virus purged from its host body. They would remain. As a testament. As evidence. _She _was the virus. She was the disease. All this death had followed her, come _from _her like she was some vessel for disaster. She was _made _of it. There was no more denying that.

"Nasira." Markel's gaze was hard on her. "This was not your doing. Not your fault. Alright?"

"You said it yourself," Nasira replied. "You said this was because of me."

"Neither of us knew this would happen. You couldn't have stopped it. It was too much. It was bigger than what one person is capable of."

Nasira wanted to say that Tresses could have handled it. Any one of the predators, maybe. If she'd let them deal with Marcus early, they could have tracked down the rest of the creatures before the infestation had grown out of control. But she had believed at the time that Marcus was entitled to the justice Nasira knew rather than the quick action of the predators. That mistake, that mercy, is what killed them. Killed Runite, nearly killed Siwili. Killed Remie and all the others. And that had been all Nasira.

But something else tugged at her. Too much. Bigger than one person. Markel was right about that. It had not been just Marcus alone. He had wreaked havoc aboard the ship, but the destruction on Uataislurn was the work of whatever organization he had been a part of. They'd seeded Uataislurn as a weapons test. To determine how quickly the xenomorph strain could overwhelm a population for warfare - extermination - purposes. In the wake of her more immediate tragedy, she'd nearly forgotten why Marcus had been fleeing Uataislurn in the first place.  
Marcus was gone, but there were others who could answer for his crimes. Those with even more heinous crimes of their own.

Nasira hadn't served justice to Marcus, but she could do it to the others. Not the slow, measured justice that she'd once believed in. But the kind of justice she'd learned from the predators. Red, ripping, violent retribution. The thought actually soothed her, brought her back to steadier senses and filled her with a warmth that grew until it brought a smile to her lips.

She could taste it in her mouth now.

* * *

When Markel emerged from the lifeboat, her expression was somber. Nasira had waited outside, unwilling to look upon its tragic contents again.

Markel was quiet for a long moment after stopping at the bottom of the lifeboat's ramp. Then she said, "Worse than I thought."

Nasira said nothing and Markel continued. "I'll take care of this. There's no need for you to have to see this."

"No. I'll help."

Markel returned to the lifeboat and when she came out again she was cradling the limp, broken body of one of the smaller passengers. She handed them off to Nasira. They were very light, the pieces that were left of them. Nasira's eyes burned and her stomach swooped like the guilt might make her sick but she forced herself to take them to the airlock and set them tenderly inside. Every ruined body she took into her arms was an act of service for the soul that had once resided there, and she wouldn't let weakness override the duty she still had to them. First this, then their vengeance.

She'd make sure of it.

When all the passengers were accounted for on the floor of the airlock, she and Markel stood over them in quiet consideration. The nimod infants they'd kept nestled together so the injury from the chestburster could not be seen. Their small frames were broken, crippled, but whole; they could be dreaming. The shattered side of Remie's head was lost in shadow, as if she'd simply tipped her chin up to survey the night sky and let half of her face be basked in moonlight.

"Did you want to say something for them?" Markel asked her.

_Yes,_ was what she thought. _This doesn't end here. I'm going to make the ones responsible for this pay. _

Yet she answered with, "No. They can't hear me now."

But they would soon. They would hear her from wherever they'd gone, beyond this observable universe and in the next with all its own stars and none of the evil of the one they'd left behind. They'd hear her when she presented to them an offering of the criminals who'd killed them.

And then maybe, finally, she'd be able to find peace too.

Markel pulled the lever on their side of the airlock and the bodies lifted up from the floor and drifted gently just above its surface. The darkness gathered them up and Nasira and Markel watched them fade.

"Come on," Markel said once they were gone. "We'll start patching the lifeboat back up. See if we can manage to get out of here."

"Where?"

Markel gave her a careful look. "You tell me."

Markel was the agent of an organization Nasira had not only left behind, but from which she'd turned delinquent. There was no reason Markel should help her, especially if she knew the extent of what Nasira was suddenly planning feverishly in her mind. But she would have time to figure out those allegiances later. The quarantine bay would not move on its own, so their only hope lay in repairing the lifeboat that had once carried death as its passenger and grief as its cargo. So for now, she could use an extra pair of hands to recommission it.

Rather than answer, Nasira stepped around her and started towards the damaged lifeboat.


	5. Firestorm

**Chapter Four:** Firestorm

* * *

Markel had done quite a job inside the lifeboat's cabin. In addition to removing the bodies, she'd also mostly eliminated most signs that a slaughter had taken place. Mostly. There was no gore remaining, but barely imperceptible dark spots painted the brushed metal walls.

She had not, however, touched what remained of the Queen. Most of _her highness_ had been vented out of the craft when her blood had torn through its hull, but a stubborn piece, part of her spined crown, was embedded in the ceiling. It was only a small bit, one of the curved arches, but Nasira could have worn it encircled around her neck.

Nasira reached up and yanked it free, leaving behind a sharp rift in the metal. She thought about tossing it through the hole in the floor and leaving it to rot in the wayward quarantine bay once they'd departed. But, just in case anyone made an effort to board in the future, she could leave no clue of the Queen's existence. She didn't care whether Adrara thought she was erasing evidence and might try to prosecute her for it later. She was. She couldn't reveal the xenomorph's existence to them lest it compromise her own plans, even if that meant she had no way of corroborating what had happened to the remaining passengers. Adrara would want to know, and Nasira was the only one who could tell them.

_But they'd have to catch her first. _

"Let's get started," Nasira said. Markel had the hose under her arms and stepped forward, letting sealant pour out of its end and begin to patch the floor. It was lucky they didn't have far to go - even for a short journey, such a hasty repair job would be flirting with disaster.

In fact, when the breach was sealed and Markel finished her diagnostic of the ship's health, she just said, "I hope you have a plan for getting us back."

Nasira, meanwhile, went to the helm and sat in the wide captain's chair. She input their flightpath and then confirmed for the computer once, twice, that _yes_, she really was sure that this was the correct destination. Once they'd departed from the quarantine bay, she sat back, spinning the bit of the Queen's crown between her fingers. When she was sure Markel was not looking, a strange feeling encroached upon her and she set it atop her head like a trophy, like a blackened bone crest.

* * *

It was to be an eight hour journey. No stops, no obstructions. Not much time at all had passed before Nasira could no longer pretend to ignore the way Markel watched her from the opposite side of the craft.

"I can save you some trouble," Nasira said. She had her leg pulled up so she was reclined in the captain's chair, the wide viewport and all the stars engulfing her. She could feel around her the shades of blood that had been spilled here. The two divisive elements warred inside of her and their conflict made her speak recklessly. "I've failed my psych evaluation and now I'm -" she flitted her fingers like they were flying away - "on the run. In shame." As she spoke, she could hear how entirely different a person she was now. Sardonic, derisive. Almost defiant. She'd found a new home, one free from dutiful expectations or charades of decorum. She was safe here, comforted. All she had to do was bite back and any scrutiny on her flinched away in fright. Now she answered only to herself.

"Do you think you've failed?" Markel asked, undeterred.

Nasira barked a laugh. What hadn't she failed at? However, Markel was regarding her seriously so Nasira forced herself to reconsider.

"I can still make it right," she said grudgingly.

"Maybe now is the time when you tell me where we're going. And what you plan to do, perhaps?"

Nasira gave her a measured stare. "Uataislurn. The same thing that happened to us also happened there."

If there had been any blood to drain from Markel's face, Nasira thought, it would have; her color seemed steelier than usual.

"What do you mean?" she asked, but her voice was quite steady.

"As we departed the planet's surface, I spotted two suicides from the cliffs overlooking the launch site. Someone deliberately exposed the planet to the infestation."

"Why wouldn't you disclose this to Adrara?"

Nasira said nothing.

"Nasira, this seems a little too much like vigilantism."

"Are you going to try to stop me?" If she did, she could take her. Maybe. Nasira was still recovering, but she'd fought worse than an android shrink pulling its punches.

"Not now. I suppose we'll see when we get there," Markel replied.

"Why?" Nasira demanded.

"I'm your psychological caretaker, responsible for your recovery. Humans can be complex. Adrara never accounted for that." Her mouth twisted into a bemused smile and for a moment Nasira saw herself, because what was the difference between them, really? A girl with a mandate, for whom everything had changed after laying eyes on the evil that had perpetuated itself amongst the innocent. Markel continued, "And you're right" - she looked gravely around the cabin where they sat, where only hours ago there had been carnage. "Someone needs to answer for this."

Nasira settled back into the chair, still not entirely at ease but feeling a burgeoning sense of relief. An ally again, at last - however brief.

* * *

The planet came into view like a pendent sliding down a chain, slowly coming to rest nestled in the center of their craft's large forward viewport. Only that pendent, ordinarily a soft gray in atmosphere, was now on fire.

Orange blossomed across Uataislurn's surface, whole continents lit aflame. Even from here, they could see how the firestorm bloomed and receded only for another pillar of flame to take its place. The skies were napalm, the land shifting, roiling heat.

Markel spoke first.

"Oh," was all she said, because cursing didn't come naturally to androids and what was there to say, anyways, that could convey the magnitude of the horror below?

Marcus had been right, Nasira thought. The infestation was too much to be managed by any careful means. A planet-wide event could only be handled by fire, purged from orbit. That was the only way to be sure. The nature of their evil _demanded _it.

Was this the result Marcus' people were hoping for? A planet overcome, and a fire to extinguish it? She'd have to ask them herself, which may prove to be easy - she'd just spotted on the cusp of the planet's orbit a space station. Larger than she'd expect a clandestine operation to use, almost a daring and bold display, but all the better. She didn't fear their numbers. There would just be more personnel aboard, more people to hold accountable.

"Let's hail them," Nasira said to Markel. "Ask what it'll take for them to let us board."

And then…

Then, justice.


	6. Lacrima

**sorry for the wait. does anyone in austin, texas wanna come murder me or give me a salaried position?**

* * *

**Chapter Five:** Lacrima

* * *

She and Markel were weary travelers, confused by the timeline of the holiday on the planet beneath them. Didn't realize the borders would not be open to receive them, and now they were stranded, _would you please be so kind as to permit us to board so we can rest up and be back on our way_?

The operator was still resistant, of course, despite their crimes below being bare to see. But she already knew that - what she needed was to know who to hold accountable. In the end, though, it was Nasira who leaned forward and cut off Markel's slow diplomatic urging.

"I am an _Earth citizen_ stranded in what seems to be isolated space - unless you count what looks like a cult down there burning their planet alive for the sake of some fucked up religion - requesting aid from a _human outpost_. Are you going to let me aboard, or do I have to take my chances with the savages?"

There was a long silence at the other end of the comms. Then a recommended boarding trajectory - a pleasantry - flashed on-screen.

"Should we discuss this?" Markel asked, eyebrows raised.

Nasira shrugged out of her coat so she was down to a tank top. With her hair braided down her back and no hijab, she was hardly recognizable. The Blooded mark on her forehead was an anomaly, but not something with which she'd been publicly associated. Still, she scraped some of her hair down so it was halfway covered. "No need."

"So where did that come from?"

Nasira saw a smeared flash of a man clutching his bloodied nose, felt the splinter in her knuckles despite it being only a recollection. "I spoke a language they recognize."

Marcus, in the brief time she had known him, had taught her a lot. Mostly about hate - how to think like she was selfish, like she was hidebound. Something that might have horrified her once. But she had to admit: it had served her well here.

* * *

They were not greeted in the landing bay, which was strange but just as well. They'd risk allowing any newcomers to roam the station freely? Perhaps they were all too absorbed with studying the inferno on the planet below.

But the moment they stepped off the ramp and onto the hangar floor, a PA system boomed loud over their heads. "Stay where you are. This is a closed craft - all visitors must submit to inspection."

Nasira turned to consider the lifeboat. She thought it better if no one had the opportunity to inspect their lifeboat. It still bore unmistakable signs of acid burns that the sludgey patch job hadn't covered. But still, she lifted her hands in mock surrender, certain the ship's top brass was huddled around monitors and debating their presence at this very moment. She said, "We've come a long way, much of it gasping on waning air reserves. But let it be said that there is no lapse in hospitality here. At your leisure." Her words dripped and Markel pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers as if it was possible her kind could succumb to migraines.

While they waited, Nasira revisited all the assurances she'd made to Markel. Not to be hasty, to take advantage of their refugee status as long as it was afforded to them. She'd consult with Markel before making any decisions to decide whether it was necessary to contact Adrara. Maybe Markel was right. This was an enormous ship, and if the people who filled it were anything like Marcus, they might readily diverge their crimes if she seemed sympathetic. All she had to do was act interested by their planet-killing toys and let them lead her to the guiltiest parties.

It was a long while before the hangar doors opened. A woman in a silk shirt and skirt, obviously a civvy, flanked by two armed guards. But the look of them - dark gray combat fatigues and helmets - made her heart stall in her chest. This was all wrong, too bold. These people...they were not private security commissioned to protect some commercial venture like Marcus had let her believe.

On their epaulets was a patch, a seal. It bore an image of the pointed union of two sabers sitting on a shelf of eaves. There was a red star balanced on their hilts and, below, the words UNITED SYSTEMS MILITARY.

Markel saw it at the same time and seized Nasira's upper arm, disguising the motion by stepping closer. She was the only thing holding Nasira up, though she could do nothing to stop Nasira from disintegrating on the inside.

USM. This was Earth's military force, the one that had raised her from the age of five until she'd joined Adrara at thirteen. She'd been met with constant hostility - a girl plucked from the ruins of Old Palestine and told she was to be the representative for all of Earth. Her mother's headscarf covering her hair - not in any religious or political capacity, but a divisive statement all the same. They'd ostracized her at best and tormented her at worst.

No matter how tenuous Earth's alliance with Adrara and the systems under its protection, it was still an alliance. And now they'd trespassed upon that agreement and slaughtered the population of one of its most isolated and peaceful cultures for the sake of a science experiment they'd use to wage war on the rest.

"Hello!" the civilian woman said, her hand outstretched the whole trek across the hangar as if she'd waited her whole life in eagerness to greet the strangers that Nasira and Markel were to her. "I'm Anne Farmiga. I'll be your liaison during your stay."

Her hand was still out expectantly and Markel seized it to cover for Nasira, whose atoms were still attempting to pull her apart.

"Thank you for receiving us. I'm sorry, my companion has had a hard journey -"

The fragment of the Queen's crown that Nasira had saved from the lifeboat pierced the throat of the first soldier as easily as hot slag through ice. He went down clutching his neck as though he could stop the blood fountaining past the shard blocking his airways. Nasira grabbed his weapon where it was slung across his chest and the other soldier went down in a spray of fire.

The Farmiga woman shrieked and attempted to scramble away. Nasira, still holding the soldier's weapon (and most of his weight along with it), swung it around at her rapidly shrinking center-of-mass. Markel attempted to drag the sights off of her but Nasira's lips were pressed together so hard they'd turned a ghastly white. She was immovable. Markel only succeeded in shaking her, and a short burst of slugs peeled out of the muzzle of the weapon and the floor behind Farmiga's heels spit sparks. Markel let go carefully to avoid jostling Nasira's trigger finger again, a hair's breadth from ending Farmiga.

Still holding the weapon trained on Farmiga, Nasira held up one hand. Five fingers. Five seconds to save her. Nasira folded one down into her palm.

Clock's started.

Markel let out a snarl of frustration and peeled off after Farmiga, who was almost to the hangar doors, her access key card brandished. Nasira let out a shaky breath and its absence brought her slowly back to her senses. Slow, deep breaths that purged the adrenaline and mania from her system. It was lucky that Markel caught up with Farmiga right before she swiped her card because Nasira had already let the weapon drop.

Markel dragged Farmiga back by the wrist, her expression thunderous. "What are you thinking? What about what we agreed? The whole ship is going to go into lockdown now!"

Nasira didn't seem to be listening. She snatched Farmiga's keycard from her flailing hand and tucked it into her pocket. Then she extracted the shard of the Queen's crown from the soldier's throat. Markel was still shouting.

"What are you going to do? You think you can just run around stabbing people with that?" she hissed.

"No," Nasira said. She bent down and removed the strap from the soldier and put it over her own shoulders. "Because now I have a military-issue Lacrima shockrifle." She pointed it at Farmiga, who froze, her high heels sliding out from under her so Markel had to hold her up. She pointed the weapon up at the hangar ceiling where undoubtedly cameras were fixed on them as if she was taking aim at the rest of the ship's personnel. "Ho, ho, ho."


	7. Old Friends

**Play your fav power ballad while you read this okay?**

* * *

**Chapter Six:** Old Friends

* * *

The streak and wail of lockdown sirens crowded the station as they made their way down its corridors, Nasira with the business end of her Lacrima jutting into Farmiga's back. The one she'd taken from the second dead soldier was on her back. Heat thrummed in Nasira's blood and her teeth ached like they ought to be brandished fangs. Her body was no longer a home for her soul, but a honed weapon furious at being held back. She was going to tear this place to pieces, stars help her.

Farmiga stumbled, one foot falling out of her elevated shoes. Nasira let silence threaten her as she tugged the shoe back on and kept walking.

Overhead, the PA system was playing a voice message. "Armed hostiles aboard. Priority one: secure sensitive materials before seeking shelter."

All of the evidence for the genocide on Uataislurn, Marcus's crimes, and the plans they had to unleash the xenomorphs as a weapon on other populated systems...it was all here, all being hurriedly tucked out of sight. But that didn't matter. She would find it, she would. The proof, halting this project in its tracks, making its perpetrators suffer - this was her only sustenance now. It was the only thing she needed before she let weeds pull her into the grave. She would starve until she made it right.

"You have a choice," Nasira said. "You can take me to the persons in charge right now and I'll let you join the other accessories to global murder..." Farmiga glowered. "...or, you can keep being useless to me and I'll relieve you of all the toes on _that _foot, and then all the toes on _that _foot. How does that sound?"

"Nasira, I can't be a party to this," Markel warned.

"Look somewhere else, then," Nasira snapped. "This is happening. I've come all this way."

"I'll take you," Farmiga said. "But you have no idea what's going on here." She said this just as they passed through a clear skybridge and the orange bloom of a fire-drenched planet surrounded them on all sides. The glow set fire to the wetness in Nasira's eyes that she didn't let show.

"Don't I? Have you learned what you thought you would? How fast, exactly, does it take them to infest the planet? And how will you top it? Maybe you'll unleash them on a planet twice the size, put twenty-billion people to death, all the while thinking '_chop chop_ guess we still have some tinkering to do before we're _really there _with the mass murder'?"

Markel was looking at Nasira as though, by her professional diagnosis, she was crazy. Nasira didn't care. This was crazy and it had made her crazy and soon it would suffer that regret.

At the next junction they met their first signs of resistance. Farmiga yelped as a line of soldiers behind a mobile barricade opened fire, forcing the three back around the corner. Nasira's expression stayed stoney as she yanked Farmiga in front of her, her mind racing. This was a well-manned military installation with boundless interests, assets, and evils that it wanted to keep close. What could she do?

Markel seemed to be thinking the same. "They've got us. We can't do anything about this."

Nasira peered into the convex mirror into the other corridor. She saw metal barricades, a mounted automatic antipersonnel weapon, and five, six, seven….

She got to an eight-count of hostiles before the high pitched ping took out her mirror. She was forced to agree with Markel.

"We backtrack," she said, gesturing for Farmiga to lead. But when they attempted to cross the sky bridge again, there was another roadblock as its far end that had not been there before.

"They're boxing us in," came Markel's warning. Nasira pulled them down the only remaining route. They were halfway down this corridor when another line of barricades sprang up and out marched a squad of soldiers. The same happened behind and they were trapped, the sights of nearly twenty weapons hot on their fronts and their backs and in any direction they might dive to escape.

Markel let out a swear uncharacteristic of an android, who preferred the more subtle of the four-letter ones, and Farmiga wheezed in relief, and Nasira pushed them both sideways through the only open door as fire bit at their shoes.

It seemed they had anticipated something like this, too, and Nasira had to fend off the two soldiers stationed just inside the room. Markel punched one in the kidneys so there was just the one who had her in a choke hold. Nasira shaped her hand into a claw and grabbed somewhere below the belt like she was trying to rip free a stubborn fixture from a wall. A strangled cry and her double vision snapped back together as his hold relinquished.

They were in a control room of sorts. One wall was all mirrored glass and the others home to various consoles, their function not apparent. Apart from the groaning soldiers they'd dispatched, there were five beakers here, all cowering over their workstations. Not one of them reminded her of Marcus in any way other than the hunch of their cowardly frames or the sweat shining off their brows. But Marcus had not been military, that was certain. And maybe he had not even been a beaker. But in whatever capacity these people _had _served, they were guilty.

An in-charge type beaker held up his hands. "We don't want violence. They won't talk you out of here. Please just go." He stepped aside to reveal a door cut into the wall made of glass. Nasira eyed it, wary of just how easy it would be to corral them into a closet so they could be ripped apart by a curtain of gunfire. But they were already closed in, it was only a matter of moments until they gained entry to the room. A way out forward, at least, meant a delay to think of something else.

So Nasira ushered Markel and Farmiga in and they obeyed. The lead beaker turned green, pointing weakly at Farmiga. "You really should leave her. There's no need." But Nasira did not even look his way, hefting her shockrifle in one hand.

"You should have thought of that. You all should have."

The glass door closed shut behind them and all the other sound muted. She could hear herself and Farmiga breathing hard. Markel was still and silent. She nodded. Forward.

They were in a small passage. The glass wall was mirrored on this side, as well, and the opposite wall was just a door. Beyond it was a black, bunker-like room with lighted strips all the way up to the ceiling and a grate floor like the bottom of a cage. Before Nasira could cross to it and lead them onward, the glass behind them flicked back to transparent.

The room with the beakers was now full of people. Top brass, all uniformed regalia bearing the United Systems Military insignia. All looking extremely serious but not in the least concerned about their presence onboard. Rather as if they thought they had nothing to fear from her. But they would.

And then Nasira knew why they appeared so nonplussed as the door opposite them slid open and hell stepped through.

Skeletal fingers clutched the metal frame. An oblong head tilted and swayed in slow motion as it maneuvered itself almost delicately past the too-narrow opening. A clawed foot stepped down on their side of the floor with the grace of a high heeled dancer.

Farmiga let out a sob that sounded as if she was as good as dead already and Markel went still in a way no human could. But Nasira smiled and held her arms out in greeting.

"How thoughtful of them to bring us back together, old friend."

The xenomorph lunged for her. To attempt to unsling her weapon in time in these close quarters would be suicide, so she simply bent backwards from its outstretched arms and, as she fell away, _twisted _her body so the muzzle was buried in the drone's undercarriage when her finger found the trigger. The concussive burst of the Lacrima slugs rang out through the small room and its aftershock was eaten up by the sound of acid blood biting into the floor.

Nasira, off to the side of the deluge, stood. The drone had not yet toppled but flung about in panic. Nasira found her way deftly through its razor thrashing and gripped the black pipes of its throat with only her hands. And squeezed. She squeezed like they were rubber tubes she could force the air from. She squeezed like she could banish the life from its body and that maybe she could have managed it all this time, but she had been in her own way far too long. It crumbled to the floor, Nasira cradling its head like she was the madonna in sorrow and it her felled son. But she kept squeezing even as it thrashed harder and its inner jaw sprang in and out of its mouth. She squeezed until it was still, when it did not react as she splayed her fingers over the shiny dome of its skull in an odd sort of caress.

Aware how many eyes were still on her, she ventured closer to its mouth and prised its jaw open. She plunged her arm into its maw nearly to the elbow before gripping the inner jaw. Two quick rips and it came away in her hand.

There was a stunned silence as Farmiga temporarily stopped snivelling for her life and Markel couldn't find anything subtly unhelpful to say and the ones on the other side of the glass stood bald gawking. Nasira made a grand show of affixing the detached inner jaw to the weapon sling she wore.

Nasira looked over her shoulder. The room the drone had come from was a holding cell of some sort. And she could tell from here that there were more of them. Many more.

Nasira stood and then helped Farmiga to her feet. She guided her gently around the widening hole the acid blood had made in the floor. It was now the radius of a large well. Nasira put one foot on each side of the rift once the acid had neutralized and the fizzing metal turned dormant, straddling it. Then she beckoned Farmiga close.

"You weren't that helpful, but still, I'm giving you a head start. Try not to break your legs when you land or it me doing this for you won't have meant anything." And then she dropped her. Markel's squawk of indignation was cut short as Nasira strode into the drone's holding cell. It was connected to another holding cell by a thick door. Through the small window she saw that this one contained three drones. One stood tall in the middle, fixated on the little glass window and leaving the other two bouncing off each other's tall back spines and jockeying for more space.

Nasira opened that door without much trouble at all. Two of the drones instantly dove to escape, tangling once in their struggle, before thundering past Markel and Nasira as if they weren't there. They threw themselves at the glass between them and the station's leaders, the now-hapless war criminals, now scrambling to survive the monsters that had been their champion.

The most dominant of the xenomorphs took its time leaving its cell. Whereas the other two had sprinted to feed, this one went slowly, discovering this new zone of its captivity. It swung its head around as if tasting the air and looked straight at Markel, with her cold, android stillness, then at Nasira who had nothing to fear from it. As if they were not there. When it did not detect them, it moved again. Not after its siblings, still banging on the glass partition, but through the hole the first drone had made in the floor.

Nasira peered down after it. "Hope Farmiga took off those ridiculous shoes. Only chance she has of making it."

* * *

Once the drones had breached the glass and cleared out the control room, Nasira and Markel left the way they'd come in (the latter in a kind of disappointed bystander comatose). A cursory inspection of the consoles in the room yielded the controls the beakers used to sic the first drone on them. Then she saw that there were actually twelve other drones aboard in various holding cells, so she loosed those too. By that time the station had been thrown into a nice tide of chaos. She did not even notice as another sort of predator joined the fray, finally taking up arms after many hours of reconnaissance upon this place from afar.

Not until a thunderous roar cut through the screeching cries of the xenomorph horde and the peal of gunfire. Nasira went very, very still. The followed the sound into the hall and then after two turns there it was.

The red burning of Uataislurn glinted off jagged wristblades like they were aware of the justice being carried out. They cut through xenomorph chitin, through manicured beaker lab coats and USM fatigues. Blood hung in the air like rubies in a vacuum. It was not long before this corridor was silent but for the far away sounds of the massacre elsewhere on the station and the predator turned to face her.

She knew it would not be Runite - he was lost to the void. And it was not Siwili, healed of his wounds, or even Tresses, but a predator she did not know. As disheartening as this was, it was quickly overshadowed by a wider sense of relief that melted her insides. They'd found her. They knew she had been the one to carry out their justice.

Nasira held up her hands in surrender but called out in greeting. "_Set! Set thei-de_." The words she'd learned from Runite, _good kill_. Best foot forward after where she'd left things with Tresses.

The predator strode towards her and she had only a brief moment to realize its intentions before it grabbed her wrist and wrenched her down. The blow that struck her across the face was like an antimatter backhand as the world went dark and took her with it.


	8. A Rude Awakening

**Hi we're at the point where I just steal things from the movies that I haven't seen in probably over a year now. Not the happiest with this chapter but I wanted to get rid of it and try to start up again. Hmu if you wanna play Oldschool Runescape with me.**

* * *

**Chapter Seven:** A Rude Awakening

* * *

_Falling again, falling. The earth and sky were above her and beneath her, above her and beneath her, as she spun out of control. A distant streak in the sky. The remains of the passenger ship being torn apart by the planet's atmosphere. Her eyes stung with wind so she closed them, at peace now that she saw her job was done. _

But wait. Was there a breach in her helmet? There could not be wind. She was falling from orbit - a low orbit, yes, but one that ought to have blistered her flesh and boiled her blood. Should have stolen her soft eyes from their sockets as if by eager vultures, just as had been done to the tortured souls of myths and legends, like the fallen wretch she was. But all she felt was the cold sting of air whipping her face, _impossible_.

When she opened them again there was no ship, engulfed by belching flames, plummeting to the surface. There was nothing but a razor atmosphere and even that was not as it had been when she'd last she'd fallen from the sky. Not blue, not blotted out by a roc's billowing wingspan, but streaked with wildfire hues. For a moment she thought she was falling towards Uataislurn, a planet ignited to quell the new colony. It would have been poetic.

But then she saw the sun - the suns. The two of them glinted like a knife's edge on the horizon, their rays marching across the wide sky like a battalion of fire-forged soldiers. The colors of the rising suns were in her eyes, too, as realization dawned.

This was no planet she'd ever seen.

Her fingers closed so the rushing air gathered in her cupped palms. She was able to bring her fall under control, however futile. That treeline, which she'd just spotted below, would cut through her or she through it without a -

Her body snapped and her feet flung out wildly, as though her legs were boneless, as a chute exploded above her head. It arrested her fall for only a split-second before alien foliage ripped at her clothes, her exposed skin, as she crashed through the treeline.

The chute snagged something that bowed beneath her weight before bending back upright, leaving her hanging in a jungle's canopy.

...giving her the moment she needed to finally think. Ever since departing the Adraran station, since seeing that horror in the lifeboat, she'd been on a kind of shameful autopilot. Not in control of herself. She remembered the turmoil of the station above Uataislurn. Turmoil she'd caused.

Relief sagged her body even though it was already dangling limply. Finally, the people responsible for that tragedy were given a dose of their own evil. How they scrambled to avoid the ghastly leers of the monsters that had been their champion. How they'd screamed and begged before barbed tails cleaved them in two.

If such a memory could give her peace, then it did.

She remembered the predator that had appeared in the fray and the blow that had put her in darkness. Where had it come from? It must have been watching closely. Perhaps it had been already aboard the station, concealed in stealth, before she and Markel had arrived. Just as Tresses and her party had stolen onto the Cavalier to address the issue of Marcus.

The last of it was behind her now.

So this was something else.

The ground was twenty feet below her. Nasira felt across her body for the metal harness and the tangled chute that emerged from it. It caged in her chest with no clear option to release it or sever the chute's cords as they twisted up and out of sight.

This was _their _technology. She was certain of it.

Nasira reached up and seized a handful of the chute's cords. Hauling herself up was easy, a simple test of upper body strength. She didn't know where she was or why, but she did know that this was the only next step, and she was capable of it. And then on to the next thing, and the next, until she had gained some sense of what was going on.

She wormed her way onto the first branch and straddled it.

She was still wearing the Lacrima shockrifle she'd appropriated earlier, its strap caught up in the chute. She pulled the shard of bone crest she'd wrested from the captive Queen and used it to saw through the cords and uncouple them from the rifle.

Now free, she sat astride the branch with the weapon cradled at the ready. The rifle and its strap sat above the metal harness, which meant whoever had put it on her had made the conscious decision to remove and then replace the weapon where she could get to it. Her eyebrows cinched but no more revealed itself to her so she had no choice but to turn her gaze outward.

Lush green jungle, still dim despite the advancing dawn, surrounded her. Intricate networks of exotic flowers raced outwards from their blooms, emboldening thorny vines as they spiralled through the canopy. The constant, baleful cry of insects hummed on all sides. A light breeze wound through treetops. The distant sound of running water.

The chute was still stuck fast somewhere far above and her attempts to extract it failed. Instead, she stood tenuously on the branch, which was just wide enough for her to step one foot in front of the other until she was able to grasp the tree's trunk and steady herself.

Where was Markel?

Where was _she_?

As if in answer, she heard the distant sounds of crashing foliage. She jammed her foot into the crook of a higher branch and scaled the tree, one hand over the other and leaping to avoid the thickets of thorns where they made the climb inhospitable. Wedged between saw-toothed ferns, she broke through the canopy.

There: tiny billowing chutes, puffs of breath unfolding in the morning chill, just above the treeline. More than a dozen of them.

Her heart thudded. She'd emerged from a vengeful haze into this and now…

Now things were coming into clearer focus.

* * *

The order of things was different than how she'd actually learned them. It had begun with the seeding of Uataislurn. Would Nasira ever have understood what she had seen before their departure, those souls who threw themselves from the cliffs rather than let the beasts gestating inside of them see daylight? Perhaps not, if they were all gone now. With the experimental station overseeing everything from orbit, there was no way any of them had ever been intended to make it off the planet. Marcus had seen to that.

And then the predators, and then all of Nasira's mistakes. The end of the ship and all of its evidence erased, until the lifeboat had returned to the Adraran station. Part of her wondered why Tresses had not tracked it down and destroyed it like she had the others, especially once it turned out that it had been carrying the infection within it. Maybe she hadn't known.

But the smallest voice inside of Nasira wondered if maybe, _maybe_, she had. Maybe she had known that Nasira would be the one to find it and realize what had happened. To see the consequences of disobeying Tresses. A knife in the back to parallel the betrayals that Nasira had levied upon Tresses near the end of their doomed voyage.

And then, of course, the revenge exacted upon the rest of Marcus's organization, the USSM. Their act of war against the rest of the developed universe, which, despite the predator's uncertain motives, Tresses and her people could not abide. So what was _this _now, after all that?

As she saw those chutes, she realized it was not finished. Not with the USSM station overcome by its own monsters. But with this. With her.

This was the last loose end.

_She _was the last loose end.

* * *

The nervous flit of her gaze and her thrumming pulse found calm with her grip wrapped around the Lacrima shockrifle. She moved forward, each step made slow and careful by the knowledge that something could be watching her at this very moment. The fact that she still had a weapon meant that they wanted her to have it. But she wasn't sure what she ought to do about that. Defend herself, yes, but at what cost? She was on their turf, and they had a very justified bone to pick.

She came across the first collapsed chute but nothing attached to it. The cords, much like her own, were cut through in hasty slashes.

The jungle floor was made up of knee-high ferns and muddy swathes stamped by pebbles and rotting limbs and vines fallen from above. The predators had shown her once before how they perceived the world in strange contours of heat and motion. Her own body, alight with nerves, would stand out to them like a beacon. That is, if they were actually somewhere nearby. This could be a sort of imposed exile...maybe she and the others who had fallen to this earth were meant to destroy each other, and that was why she'd retained her weapon.

"Hold on, hold on!" A voice from afar. Nasira bounded towards it and slipped down low beneath the ferns when she got close, crawling the rest of the way to a clearing where a man stood in USSM fatigues. Above him was a woman, entangled in her own chute.

"I can't! I'm stuck," the woman bawled. As she kicked and thrashed, one of her shoes came off her foot and landed a few feet from where Nasira hid. A polished high heel.

Nasira stood up, revealing herself, and the man wheeled around with his sidearm brandished.

"Stay where you are!" he said. He was clearly favoring one leg. The fabric just above one of his boots was dotted with acid damage.

Nasira ignored him and picked up the shoe. "You did make it," she said, shaking the leaves and dirt out of it. "But do you know where my android went?"

Farmiga stopped kicking and grasped at the cords that held her up so the strain on her chest would let her breathe. "You're crazy," she snapped.

"I admit, I wasn't at my best," Nasira conceded. To the man: "You'll let me help you get her down?"

"Fu-" The shoe hit him in the mouth and he reeled backwards. Nasira swung her Lacrima up and Farmiga shrieked as leaves and hot metal slag rained down on her. The branch holding her up buckled and Farmiga fell, swinging backwards in an arc just low enough that her toes skated through the ferns before finally toppling the rest of the way down. She sputtered and coughed, winded, on the ground. Her stockings were ripped and red scratches showed through. When she found her feet, her one-night updo was askew and twigs jutted from it like it was a birds nest.

"You - are - crazy!" she said again. She hastily retied the sash on her blouse and it was as if she'd fully recovered herself with those two quick knots. She strode forward so she was nose to nose with Nasira, the latter of which gazed at her, unimpressed.

"But efficient," Nasira replied.

Her companion in fatigues was just standing as well. He hefted the shoe as if he wanted to launch it back at her but Farmiga, swaying and unbalanced on only one, held her hand out for it.

Nasira set her chin in her hand in thought. "I saw more parachutes. Friends of yours?"

The man - Cooper, from the name stitched on his front - scowled and said, "Don't know. Woke up in freefall."

"What's the last thing either of you remember?"

His jaw tightened, a nerve pulsating beneath his tightly cropped military cut. He looked just as unlikely to speak as an ugly, carved statue but Farmiga said, "I was cornered in a supply closet by one of the subjects." A stabbing look in Nasira's direction, which she ignored. "Then nothing."

To which Cooper reluctantly added, "The same, but we were barricaded on level C, across from the canteen."

Nasira nodded. The predator that had attacked her had cut through all the loosed xenomorphs and panicked personnel in the skybridge before turning to her. Supposedly it had done the same elsewhere, clearing out the infestation before plucking the remaining survivors out of the fray and bringing them here, wherever here was.

"We should try to meet up with the rest, then," Nasira said. "Strength in numbers."

"Why would we go anywhere with you?" Farmiga said. "You tried to bring down _our whole operation_ like some kind of _animal_."

"I thought I succeeded, all things considered." She patted her pockets, doing a full inventory. The Queen's bone shard, the Lacrima, but that was all. Everything else she'd left back on the Adraran station, like her mother's headscarf. Runite's spear was still on that craggy oceanside cliff in the roc's nest, as were all her trophies. She'd stripped down from the uniform coat she'd been wearing into just an olive t-shirt. At least her pants and boots were heavy enough to protect her body in a trek through the jungle.

She didn't spend any more time convincing them, just turned and started off in the direction she'd seen the rest of the parachutes. After a long moment, and with no other choice, they began to follow.


End file.
